Pretty day today. It was nice raking this morning — cool but sunny, and when you start moving around it’s the perfect temperature. I cut back some of those thorny vines around the bushes. It wasn’t that bad — I guess the drought has some good results as well. Didn’t see the vole or mole.

Did some bukkits in your room. Straightened out the books on the bookshelves and coiled up some of the cables. Folded up some laundry.

Got rid of the stuff in my car. I tried to give it to the house where the Grady Hospital doctor lived but she’d moved away so I gave it to the Salvation Army truck. Went to the school to get students’ papers. Was going to go to a coffee shop to work on it but realized I’d forgotten my pod. So I just dropped off some dry cleaning and got new lawn bags.

Got some tasty tacos for dinner at the tacqueria. Stopped by the hair salon there and made an appointment.

Fell asleep after dinner but then woke up and started in on bukkits. Now the big pile of mail in the kitchen is gone. I put it in folders.

Will start on some things for the students tomorrow. Not all that eager to do it.

The more I watch Sarah Palin the more I’d like to slap her. She’s such a terrible snob. She is so ignorant and yet looks down on other people who disagree with her as if they’re stupid. Her talk about “Americans” is so offensive it makes me absolutely crazy. And that nasally whine. She should just go back to Alaska and bake cookies. Instant cookies.

I like the picture of the fish and chip shop. I liked very much the picture of the fish and chip dinner. It looked like an especially tasty specimen. Lucky you.

Here are some pictures for you today.

Happy fish

Mr Grey and Mr Greene

Flowers on the porch

Lawn 1

I wish i could have gotten a picture of the little mole I met while raking the lawn but I didn’t want to leave him along until he found a safe place to hide. He was so tiny and helpless looking. You can bet those squirrels like to eat moles.

Someone ate the cabbage that was in the planter on the front porch. Unless you took it away. Did someone think it was tasty, or would be useful for some purpose? It’s gone. The squirrels like that planter. When opened the door to start my raking a squirrel was sitting there. When he saw me he didn’t flinch, just make threatening noises. I shook my rake at him and he ran away. If Miss Puss were still here he wouldn’t have acted so entitled, I’m sure.

Colin Powell came out incredibly strongly and reasonably for Obama. There wasn’t a single thing he said that I disagreed with. How reassuring to hear that not all of them are freaky nutjobs.

The phone guy came and climbed up on his ladder outside my window. Then he drove away. An hour later he called to say he couldn’t fix the problem and I’d have to wait until Monday. I guess you picked a good time to not be here. The internets seem to work fine. On Twitter they say that the McCain campaign is running tons of robo-calls that make nasty accusations, so it’s just as well the phone doesn’t work.

Did a lot of tidying today. Will do some more tomorrow. There’s lots of tidying that has been neglected. Saw a show on tv that was about someone’s extreme makeover so I went to Macy’s to see if I could find any clothes but hated them all and decided I looked terrible. So much for the makeover.

Went to the grocery store and filled up my basket and got in line only to find that I didn’t have my debit card. Had to put down the basket and rush back and get my card. Fortunately nobody had bothered the basket in the meantime. Had a frozen dinner and some choc.

Turns out the show “My Own Worst Enemy” is EXCELLENT. You can watch the first episode until Monday, here. I mean, I assume it will work internationally. If it doesn’t it’s on I-Tunes for $2.99. I recommend it highly. I don’t mind this watch-it-on-your-computer thing. It’s nice.

The Sarah Palin SNL appearance was pretty awful. Tina did well, and Palin tried to rise to the occasion, but Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin were horrible. Wahlberg looked genuinely angry, and Baldwin wouldn’t look Palin in the eye. The whole thing looked like there had been some embarrassing fight moments before and then everyone had to pretend they didn’t loathe one another. Grotesque. It’s all gone far enough.

Finally, today’s picture:

Osaka Municipal Library

Not a very easy one, but the building’s interesting so I wanted to try anyway.

It rained a lot but I didn’t bring my umbrella so I got kind of rained on. It’s warm though so it wasn’t so bad.

Watched old westerns on tv. Now watching “Crusoe” which is a pretty amazing bit of political incorrectitude but fabulous nonetheless. Lots of nice looking fellas in various stages of tropical jungle situations. Lady pirate. Spaniards. Tech improvised from coconuts. Treasurrre! Haharr! hope it’s a series–I could watch this a lot.

Jon Stewart: John, Joe the plumber has been giving more interviews than Sarah Palin!

John Oliver: Who?

JS: Sarah Palin!

JO: Does she plumb?

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Stephen Colbert’s intro was a great send-up of plumbers in general with a lot of plumbing-related technobabble worthy of reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. In pipes. It’s worth finding on the Comedy Central site.

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Today I had to go to Yumi’s class to give her students their exams. Then half of my students had their exams. I also had a class which I am sure is very boring for the students. They had their midterms due today. I will have to spend the weekend grading their exams. Not very much fun, I’m sure.

Didn’t do really well in my guitar lesson, I think. Didn’t practice as much as I should have. Will try to practice more this week or I’ll really be embarrassed. I think the teacher doesn’t care for students who don’t practice. He’d just been chatting to me about one of his students who drove him crazy because he like sat back in the chair and said, “uh, well, I didn’t practice.” When I heard that it was really awkward. I said, “akshully, I didn’t practice either.” Very tense. Made talking about intervals preferable.

For dinner I had warmed-over tortellini. And some ice cream. There’s still some of each left so I guess I have me another dinner.

Lou Dobbs was on for a while and that was boring. I tried to watch the early Jon Stewart but that was a repeat. However, The Scarlet Pimpernel with Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon was on TMC and it was utterly brilliant so I enjoyed that a lot. The birds liked it pretty much I think. Then I watched episode 1 of the original Life on Mars just to remind myself what was good about it. It really was good.

538.com still looks healthy for Mr Obama. Apparently McCain is so desperate he’s crawling back onto the Letterman show tonight. God. Politics is a humiliating profession. I think Intrade still looks good for BHO too but I don’t know how to read those numbers.